[U-Boot-Users] booting elf images where VMA != LMA
Robin Getz
rgetz at blackfin.uclinux.org
Fri Mar 25 15:53:55 CET 2005
The elf standard (& the gnu linker) supports two types of memory addresses:
- virtual memory address (VMA).
This is the address the section will have when the output file is run.
- load memory address (LMA)
This is the address at which the section will be loaded.
In most cases the two addresses will be the same (LMA equal to the VMA). An
example of when they might be different is when a data section is loaded
into ROM, and then copied into RAM when the program starts up. In this case
the ROM address would be the LMA, and the RAM address would be the VMA.
What seems to happen in the 'bootelf' command in U-boot, is it ignores the
LMA, and loads things at the VMA. This means that any elf image that
expects things to be at the LMA at run time does not function properly, as
things have already been relocated. (Normally when LMA != VMA, relocation
is done in the startup code).
Question is:
- Do I patch the standard elf relocation code to always load things at
the LMA?
OR
- Do I patch the standard elf relocation code to load at the LMA when
CONFIG_ELF_LOAD_LMA is set? (or some such thing)
Comments welcome.
Thanks
-Robin
Details of the issue:
Looking at the elf file with objdump and readelf shows a section named
.text_l1, with a VMA = ffa00000, and a LMA = 000f27c8.
'objdump -h' gives me:
Sections:
Idx Name Size VMA LMA File off Algn
(--snip--)
5 .text_l1 00000170 ffa00000 000f27c8 000e4000 2**4
CONTENTS, ALLOC, LOAD, READONLY, CODE
(--snip--)
'readelf -S' provides:
Section Headers:
[Nr] Name Type Addr Off Size ES Flg Lk Inf Al
(--snip--)
[ 6] .text_l1 PROGBITS ffa00000 0e4000
00017000 AX 0 0 16
(--snip--)
'readelf -l' provides
Elf file type is EXEC (Executable file)
Entry point 0x1000
There are 2 program headers, starting at offset 52
Program Headers:
Type Offset VirtAddr PhysAddr FileSiz MemSiz Flg Align
LOAD 0x001000 0x00001000 0x00001000 0xe2be0 0xf17c8 RWE 0x1000
LOAD 0x0e4000 0xffa00000 0x000f27c8 0x00170 0x00170 R E 0x1000
Section to Segment mapping:
Segment Sections...
00 .text .init .data .bss
01 .text_l1
It looks like the elf relocation loads sections from the section list
rather than use the segment (program) header (which is where the load
address and virtual addresses are stored).
uboot with bootelf says :
Bytes transferred = 5328594 (514ed2 hex)
(--snip--)
Loading .text_l1 @ 0xffa00000 (368 bytes)
(--snip--)
Futher reading (and where I snipped some of the above from) is at:
http://sources.redhat.com/binutils/docs-2.15/ld/Basic-Script-Concepts.html#Basic%20Script%20Concepts
http://sources.redhat.com/binutils/docs-2.15/ld/Output-Section-LMA.html
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